Music as negative as it gets

There are feel good movies, feel good songs, and other forms of entertainment designed to bring about feelings of goodness, contentment or even, bliss. However, there are also musical moments in which a tortured artist wishes to share his/her pain and/or a very bleak sense of the world or of just basic existence. This can sometimes be quite beautifully done, as in, for example, some of the music of Nick Drake. Drake was a genius, and even though he fell into a state of psychic disintegration toward the end of his life, with this reflected in his music (particularly the LP Pink Moon), his music remained largely generous toward the listener.

In the mid to late 1980s, one trend in post-punk and industrial music was toward a kind of loud, noisy abrasiveness, as in the music of such performers as The Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Foetus (James George Thirlwell), Killdozer, the Cows, Pussy Galore,The Swans, Live Skull and various others. This music was truly an underground phenomon, resulting in extreme, atonal music which was really theatrical, often used to accompany a type of confrontational performance art. Also influential for such groups were such pioneering acts as Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Public Image, Ltd. and Flipper.

Here, too, is a sampling of clips for music that explores sadness, isolation and other negative emotional extremes.

Jandek (live) Real Wild
Jandek (video) The Glade
Lou Reed Berlin
Voivod Insect
Leonard Cohen Everybody Knows
Joy Division She's Lost Control
Flipper Ever and The way of the world

and a song by a fairly mainstream rock act, the Who The Real Me but one which addresses a sense of onself as emotionally unstable.

Also relevant; a short film Waking to Berlin

Here, too, are some songs that wallow in self-pitying, self-loathing (or at least self-depreciation), or self-objectification. Yes, some of these are shamelessly manipulative of the heartstrings; that's probably what made them such classic hits.

"Lovesick Blues" - Hank Williams
"Crying" - a remake by Roy Orbison with KD Laing
"It's My Party" - Leslie Gore or Bryan Ferry
"What kind of fool am I?" - This torchy showtune has been widely covered, but here it gets sung by Anthony Warlow, who I had never heard of prior to this search; apparently he is a star of such shows as Phantom of the Opera.
"I'm a loser"- The Beatles (hard to feel sorry for them over all the screaming girls)
"Baby's in black" - The Beatles
"In my room" - The Beach Boys
"I wanna be your dog" - The Stooges (a more recent version of this band)
"Poor Poor Pitiful Me" - Linda Ronstadt or Warren Zevon
"You and me against the world"- Helen Reddy
"Rainy days and mondays" - the Carpenters
"At Seventeen"- Janis Ian
"53rd and 3rd" - The Ramones
"Pinhead" - The Ramones
"Pretty Vacant"- The Sex Pistols
"Seventeen" - The Sex Pistols
"Boredom" - The Buzzcocks
"Who Said" - Richard Hell and the Voidoids
"Life Stinks" - Pere Ubu
"55 Times the Pain" - Husker Du
"I Felt Like a Gringo" - The Minutemen
"Milk it" - Nirvana
"Rape me" - Nirvana
"Deformography" - Marilyn Manson

A video chronology of post-British Invasion rock-pop and power pop

Here are some links to some music videos (and in some cases live clips) for some songs, mostly by indie/cult pop/rock and classic pop/rock bands, I happen to like. I've put these together because they offer a kind of narrative of a kind of skewed post-British Invasion rock-pop and power pop, that goes from garage rock through bubblegum to punk and post-punk, with some brilliant, genius moments at various points in between. I generally remember all of this music, some of which was in the air during my early childhood in the mid 60s; to me, bands like the Cyrkle and the Dave Clark Five represent the 60s as I experienced it much more than icons like the Jefferson Airplane or the Grateful Dead.

(a note: a number of these links are dead, but it turns out that in most instances, they have been reposted, perhaps by a different user, and are thus very easy to search for; corporate entities like Viacom are going to have to spend a great deal of company resources fighting what will probably prove to be a losing battle in the neverending attempt to retain a corporate oligopoly over such archival images, will lots of earned ill will in the process.)

The Cyrkle Red Rubber Ball
The Lemon Pipers My Green Tambourine (and here they are, performing on the Mike Douglas Show)
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders The Game of Love
Hermans Hermits Dandy
Tommy Roe Sweet Pea
1910 Fruitgum Company 1-2-3 Red Light
The Okaysions Girl Watcher
The Statler Brothers Flowers on the Wall
The Boxtops The Letter
The Association Windy
The Toys A Lover's Concerto
The Dave Clark Five I Like it Like That
The Monkees Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day and I'm a Believer and Mary Mary . Here too is the video to the very obscure Windup Man
The Nazz Open My Eyes
Crispian St. Peters The Pied Piper
Petula Clark A Sign Of The Times
The Mamas and the Papas Monday Monday
The Beatles Hello Goodbye and Rain and Tomorrow Never Knows and And Your Bird Can Sing and All Together Now and It's All Too Much and I Am The Walrus and Your Mother Should Know and Flying
Donovan There is a Mountain (and here's another version .)
The Kinks Waterloo Sunset and Days and All You Need is Love
The New Vaudeville Band Winchester Cathedral
The Beach Boys GoodVibrations
The Byrds Turn Turn Turn
The Turtles She'd Rather Be With Me
Oliver Good Morning Starshine
The Doors Hello I Love You
The Foundations (c.o There's Something About Mary) Build Me Up Buttercup
Pink Floyd Scarecrow
The Cowsills The Rain The Park and Other Things
Simon and Garfunkel (live) 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy) (and here's a related early 70s Cheerios Commercial)
The Archies Sugar Sugar (and here is the cartoon version of this bubblegum classic)
Mungo Jerry In the Summertime
Big Star Lady Sweet
Paul McCartney Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey and Helen Wheels and Hi Hi Hi and Junior's Farm
The Looking Glass Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)
The Raspberries GoAlltheWay
Sweet Little Willy and Fox on the Run
Bay City Rollers Rock and Roll Love Letter
Eddie and the Hot Rods Do Anything You Want To Do
The Buzzcocks What Do I Get and Promises and Nothing Left At All
The Saints I'm Stranded
The Undertones Teenage Kicks
The Dickies Banana Splits song
Meat Puppets Get On Down and Scum
The Replacements Kiss Me On the Bus and I Will Dare and Kids Don't Follow and Kick Your Door Down
The Stone Roses Elephant Stone
The Jesus and Mary Chain Rollercoaster and You Trip Me Up
Blur Chemical World and She's So High
Stereolab Cybele's Reverie and Wow and Flutterhttp
Yo La Tengo From a Motel 6 and Big Day Coming
The Chills Heavenly Pop Hit
The Bats Too Much
The Television Personalities The Painted Word
The Close Lobsters Never Before Seen
Beulah Gravity Brings Us Down
Circulatory System Should a Cloud Replace a Compass?
Teenage Fanclub Everything Flows
Shonen Knife Redd Kross andRiding on the Rocket and Twist Barbie
Miyavi Woo Hoo
The NoMen I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
The Raveonettes Love Trash Can and Attack of the Ghost Riders
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Love Burns
The Magnetic Fields Love Goes Home to Paris
East River Pipe Metal Detector

And, on a somewhat unrelated note, I thought I'd throw in a link to a very funny musical parody of the John Waters' star Divine, played by John Candy on SCTV. My wife and I heard this song, as performed by Elvis, while shopping at the Mall, and of course with thought of this clp (which was filmed, incidentally, in the subfreezing winter air of Alberta, Canada.